Florida Property Tax on a Homestead Can Zero the Non-School Line. School Mills Stay.

A Florida homestead tax bill is two calculations on one notice. School-district mills apply to one taxable value. County, city, and water-management mills apply to another. On the 2027 property record card for 2302 SW 20th Court in Ocala, parcel 2357-001-001, assessed value is $96,455. School taxable value is $71,455. Non-school taxable value is $45,044. The Department of Revenue’s 2025 final millage sheet for district 1001 totals 17.1370 mills, of which 6.3200 are school and 10.8170 are not. At those rates the school piece is $451.60 and the non-school piece is $487.24.

If voters approve Amendment 3 on November 3, 2026, the non-school homestead exemption becomes $150,000 of assessed value in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. An assessed value of $96,455 sits under both of those amounts, so the non-school taxable value on this card falls to zero and the $487.24 comes off the millage arithmetic. The school exemption stays at $25,000. The school piece stays $451.60. The ballot text, the 60 percent approval rule, and the statewide revenue table are the separate note, Amendment 3. This page is the bill.

Statewide context stays on Florida markets. A purchase or a sale sits on residential.

The order on the bill

The property appraiser starts with just value as of January 1. Save Our Homes then limits how fast a homestead’s assessed value may rise: the lower of 3 percent or the change in the Consumer Price Index. Exemptions come off assessed value and produce taxable value. Each taxing authority multiplies its own taxable value by its own millage and divides by 1,000.

Today the first $25,000 of assessed value is exempt from all levies, including school levies. A second exemption applies to non-school assessed value above $50,000. The Revenue Estimating Conference prints that second amount for 2026 as $26,411, inside a maximum of $76,411. On the Ocala card, exemption codes 01 and 38 total $51,411. Code 01 is homestead. Code 38 is the additional $25,000 that the Marion County Property Appraiser’s code list says does not apply to the school levy. Assessed value of $96,455 minus $51,411 is the non-school taxable value of $45,044. Assessed value minus the $25,000 school exemption is the school taxable value of $71,455.

The card also prints a just value of $192,966 and an impact of $96,511, which is the gap between just value and assessed value. The appraiser’s value help describes that gap as market value minus Amendment 10 holdings or an agricultural classification. On a homestead, that gap is the Save Our Homes differential the owner has already accumulated. The exemption does not erase it. The exemption is subtracted after it.

District 1001, in mills

The Department of Revenue Property Tax Oversight sheet titled Marion County Taxing Authorities, 2025 final millage rates, received October 16, 2025, prints a column for district 1001, labeled Ocala. The lines in that column:

• County general fund 3.0900, fine and forfeiture 0.8300, health 0.1000. County total 4.0200.
• School required local effort 3.0720, discretionary operating 0.7480, capital outlay 1.5000, additional voted millage 1.0000. School total 6.3200.
• Water management 0.1793 in the 1001 column, the St. Johns River Water Management District rate on that sheet. Other Marion districts print the Southwest Florida rate of 0.1831.
• City of Ocala 6.6177. The municipal-service taxing unit total in the 1001 column is 0.0000.

Those pieces add to the sheet’s printed total levy for 1001 of 17.1370. School is 6.3200. Everything else is 4.0200 plus 0.1793 plus 6.6177, which is 10.8170. The Marion County School Board’s fiscal year 2025–2026 budget summary prints the same school total, 6.3200.

Millage is a rate per thousand dollars of taxable value. It is not the tax. A house in Belleview, Dunnellon, or unincorporated Marion is in a different column on the same sheet. Hills of Ocala is district 5072, and that column carries the Hills of Ocala MSTU of 0.1800. District 1001 does not.

Two doors, two taxable values

Both cards are in the Cala Hills Phase 1 index, on SW 20th Court, property class 01, year built 1988, district 1001. The first is homesteaded. The second is not.

Parcel 2357-001-001, 2302 SW 20th Court. Just value $192,966. Assessed value $96,455. Exemptions $51,411. Non-school taxable value $45,044. School taxable value $71,455. The card’s taxes and assessments line is $1,216.03. Lot size 0.06 acres.

Parcel 2357-001-002, 2304 SW 20th Court. Just value $184,037. Assessed value $170,100. Exemptions $0. Non-school taxable value $170,100. School taxable value $184,037, which equals the just value. Impact $13,937. The card’s taxes and assessments line is $3,154.12. Lot size 0.05 acres.

The second card is the non-homestead pattern the constitution already uses. School levies sit outside the 10 percent assessment cap, so school taxable value can equal just value while non-school taxable value equals the capped assessed value. The first card is the homestead pattern: both sides use assessed value, and only the non-school side receives the second exemption.

Applying the 2025 district 1001 rates to those taxable values:

• 2302, school: $71,455 times 6.3200 per thousand is $451.60.
• 2302, non-school: $45,044 times 10.8170 per thousand is $487.24.
• 2302, those two lines: $938.84.
• 2304, school: $184,037 times 6.3200 per thousand is $1,163.11.
• 2304, non-school: $170,100 times 10.8170 per thousand is $1,839.97.
• 2304, those two lines: $3,003.08.

The cards print $1,216.03 and $3,154.12. The gaps are $277.19 and $151.04. The millage sheet is ad valorem. A taxes-and-assessments line can also carry non-ad valorem assessments, and the card year and the 2025 millage year are not the same document. This page does not assign the gap to a named assessment. The exemption math below changes taxable value. It uses the millage arithmetic, and it leaves the card’s printed line as the card’s printed line.

If the assessed value holds and the exemption rises

Amendment 3, for an owner who maintained a Florida permanent residence on December 31, 2026, replaces the non-school exemption with $150,000 of assessed value beginning January 1, 2027, and $250,000 beginning January 1, 2028. The conference’s table applies those amounts to total non-school assessed value, and it keeps taxable value from falling below zero. School levies remain exempt only up to $25,000. The conference’s school column is 0.0 in every year.

On 2302, assessed value is $96,455. Both $150,000 and $250,000 are larger than that assessment. Non-school taxable value becomes $0 in 2027 and stays $0 in 2028, as long as assessed value remains under the exemption. The step from $150,000 to $250,000 does not change this house. The house was already fully covered.

School taxable value stays $71,455 if assessed value stays $96,455. At 6.3200 mills that is still $451.60. The non-school $487.24 is the amount this millage arithmetic removes. The owner who stays, and whose Save Our Homes assessed value stays under the new exemption, keeps a school bill and loses the county, city, and water-management ad valorem lines that were running on $45,044.

A homestead assessed above the exemption keeps a remainder. At an assessed value of $200,000, with no other exemption, the 2027 non-school taxable value would be $50,000 and the 2028 non-school taxable value would be zero. At $300,000 of assessed value, 2028 would still leave $50,000 subject to the 10.8170 non-school mills, which is $540.85, plus school mills on assessed value minus $25,000. Those round figures are illustrations of the exemption rule. They are not 2302, and they are not a county median.

The conference also prints later CPI adjustments if the amendment passes and the index change is positive: $255,600 in 2029, $260,993 in 2030, and $267,231 in 2031. A tax bill uses those figures only after a property appraiser applies them to one parcel.

The buyer is on just value

The seller’s assessed value is not the buyer’s assessed value. Save Our Homes produced the $96,511 gap on 2302. A change of ownership returns the assessment toward just value. Portability can transfer a homestead differential, and the constitution already caps that transfer at $500,000. This page does not assign a portable amount to the owner of 2302. The case below is the case with no transferred differential: the next assessment uses the card’s just value of $192,966.

School taxable value in that case is $192,966 minus $25,000, which is $167,966. At 6.3200 mills that is $1,061.55.

If the buyer maintained a Florida permanent residence on December 31, 2026, and the amendment is approved, the 2027 non-school exemption is $150,000. Non-school taxable value is $192,966 minus $150,000, which is $42,966. At 10.8170 mills that is $464.76. School plus non-school is $1,526.31.

In 2028 the non-school exemption is $250,000, which covers $192,966. Non-school taxable value is $0. The millage arithmetic falls to the school line only, $1,061.55.

Set that next to the long-time owner. After the exemption change, and with assessed value held at $96,455, the owner’s millage arithmetic is $451.60. The buyer with no portability, even after the 2028 exemption has wiped the non-school line, is still at $1,061.55, because the school mills are running on a taxable value built from just value rather than from a capped assessment. In 2027, before the exemption reaches $250,000, the buyer’s two lines are $1,526.31, which is above the seller’s current two-line arithmetic of $938.84.

That is the purchase. The headline exemption and the seller’s tax line answer different questions. A buyer who underwrites the seller’s $1,216.03 line is underwriting the seller’s Save Our Homes history and the seller’s exemptions. The January 1 assessment after the deed is the buyer’s assessment. Homestead still has to be granted by the property appraiser. The office in Marion County is 501 SE 25th Avenue, Ocala, 352-368-8300.

Someone who had not maintained a Florida permanent residence on December 31, 2026, is on a slower schedule if the amendment passes. The enrolled resolution gives that owner $25,000 for school levies and $50,000 for other levies, and the larger inflation-adjusted amount beginning with the fifth year of the exemption. The conference assumes essentially none of those $50,000 exemptions appear on the 2027 roll, because a first homestead claimed during 2027 generally first appears on the 2028 roll. A county or city may shorten the five-year wait beginning in 2030, by a two-thirds vote, if it finds a critical local need. Until that vote exists, the five-year text is the text.

The house next door does not get the exemption

2304 has exemptions of $0. It is not on the homestead schedule. Amendment 3’s change for that parcel, if it passes, is the non-school assessment cap: 10 percent before January 1, 2027, and 5 percent beginning January 1, 2027, for residential property of nine or fewer units that is not homesteaded, and the assessment still may not exceed just value. School levies stay outside that cap, which is why this card’s school taxable value already equals just value.

A buyer of 2304 who does not homestead it is buying the reset to just value, then a slower non-school climb. A buyer who does homestead it, was a Florida resident on December 31, 2026, and brings no portability, would be assessed from the just value of $184,037. School taxable value would be $159,037, and at 6.3200 mills that is $1,005.11. In 2027 the non-school remainder after a $150,000 exemption would be $34,037, and at 10.8170 mills that is $368.18. In 2028 the $250,000 exemption would cover $184,037, and the non-school line would be zero. Those sentences are the rule applied to this card’s just value. They are not a prediction of the appraiser’s next just value, and they are not the current owner’s bill. The current owner’s two-line arithmetic is $3,003.08.

What the revenue conference printed for Marion and Ocala

The bill on one house and the revenue of a government are the same exemption read from two sides. On July 10, 2026, the Revenue Estimating Conference adopted the impact of CS/HJR 1F. School impact is zero. If the amendment fails, the impact is zero. If it passes, the conference’s statewide non-school recurring figure is $11,834.7 million. Marion’s row in that county table is school 0.0 and non-school recurring $170.9 million.

The conference’s authority-level workpapers print a dash for the year with no cash impact, then the non-school figures for the years that follow, beginning with fiscal year 2027–28:

• Marion County Board of County Commissioners: $78,333,305, then $124,377,558, then $133,282,220, then $142,563,913, then $152,193,484.
• City of Ocala: $6,937,734, then $11,245,325, then $12,273,730, then $13,161,138, then $14,017,071.
• All independent special districts in Marion: $1,699,661 in the first cash year.
• Belleview: $491,065. Dunnellon: $165,568. McIntosh: $19,425. Reddick: zero, which matches a city the millage sheet says does not levy.

The first cash year with a number is fiscal year 2027–28, in line with a January 1, 2027 effective date and with taxes on that roll collected in the following local fiscal year. The second cash figure is the year the conference has the $250,000 exemption in the model. Ocala’s figure rises from $6.9 million to $11.2 million between those two years. The county commission’s figure rises from $78.3 million to $124.4 million.

Those are estimates of revenue the local governments would not receive, against the conference’s own baseline. They are not a line item already cut from a budget, and they are not the tax savings on 2302. The $487.24 on that one card is the parcel. The $6,937,734 is the city.

The 2025 levies those governments adopted

The Department of Revenue’s 2025 property tax levy comparison, for taxing authorities subject to maximum millage requirements, prints taxes levied at the adopted rate. The sheet says the figures are operating millages only, and that they do not include municipalities and independent special districts that have been levying for less than five years. School districts are not the rows in this comparison.

Statewide, at the adopted rate: counties $17,516,996,117, municipalities $9,117,886,584. Marion County’s adopted-rate levy in the county section is $117,819,376. The City of Ocala’s adopted-rate levy in the municipal section is $56,436,641.

The conference’s first-year county impact of $78.3 million and the 2025 county levy of $117.8 million are different documents. One is a forecast reduction in a later fiscal year if voters approve the amendment. The other is the levy the county adopted for the current roll. Dividing them would treat a future baseline as if it were this year’s budget. This page prints both and leaves them in their own columns.

The same caution applies to the city. Ocala’s 2025 adopted levy is $56.4 million. The conference’s first cash impact on the city is $6.9 million, then $11.2 million in the following year. A resident reading those as “the city loses this share of last year’s budget” is mixing a forecast with a levy. The use of whatever ad valorem revenue remains, if the amendment passes, is also in the ballot measure: counties and municipalities would be limited to the purposes in the new Section 9(a)(2), including public safety, education funding, infrastructure, natural resources, bond debt, retirement benefits, and the operations their officers or governing bodies approve unless general law prohibits them. The school board’s millage is outside that use-limit. It is also outside the exemption increase.

What an owner checks before November 3

The election is the November 3, 2026 general election. Article XI, Section 5(e) of the Florida Constitution requires at least 60 percent of the electors voting on the measure. The effective date written into the amendment is January 1, 2027. Until that roll exists, the notice in hand uses the current exemption and the current 10 percent non-homestead cap.

An owner who already has homestead, and who lived in Florida on December 31, 2026, reads the card’s assessed value against $150,000 and then against $250,000. If assessed value is under the exemption, the non-school ad valorem lines go to zero and the school lines stay. If assessed value is over the exemption, the remainder stays taxable at the non-school millage the local boards adopt that year. The 2025 rates are the rates in hand. The 2027 rates are a later adoption, under the same constitutional ceilings of ten mills for county purposes, ten mills for municipal purposes, and ten mills for school purposes.

A buyer reads just value, asks whether any Save Our Homes differential transfers, and asks the property appraiser which residency date applies. The weekly mortgage survey is a separate line on the same household budget. Freddie Mac’s October 8, 2026 average was 7.40 percent on the 30-year, and the published principal and interest on a $300,000 loan at that rate is $2,077.14 a month, in the October 8 survey note. That payment is not a tax, and the tax is not a payment.

Bridge Point reads the card, the millage column, and the homestead file with you before an offer. Call 352-515-0226 or start at contact.